1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to mobile user devices and more particularly to a device orientation based translation system on a mobile user device.
2. Related Art
As the world becomes more interconnected and people and businesses become global in their interactions, the ability to communicate becomes an issue. People and businesses in a given region typically utilize, for example, different languages and currencies than those in other regions. These differences tend to introduce barriers to communication between parties.
Conventionally, there are a number of steps that must be taken in order to surmount the communication barriers discussed above. For example, businesses may train their employees, or individuals may educate themselves, to operate in other regions such that they speak the appropriate language and are able to convert currency when dealing with those parties. However, such training is extremely time consuming and expensive, and limits the ability to communicate to a relatively small subset of individuals that have been trained to do so in specific regions.
Furthermore, for people and/or businesses that have not put forth the time, effort, and expense to train themselves to communicate in a specific region, typical solutions to the communication issues discussed above include translation books that require the user to look up foreign words in their native language, and currency calculators that require the user to enter a native or foreign currency to determine a desired conversion. Each of these solutions requires a significant amount of time and effort from the user each time the user wishes to communicate, which makes communication awkward and ineffective. Furthermore, the user must be prepared with the translation book and currency calculator that are specific to the region in which the user is located in order to be able to communicate, which requires significant planning and expense, particularly for a user that travels to a variety of different regions frequently.
Thus, there is a need for an improved content translation system.